World Book Day Artist Spotlight

World Book Day Artist Spotlight

World Book Day here in the UK is celebrated on the first Thursday of March. This is a nationwide push to encourage children to read more. On this day you can see tons of school children travelling to school dressed up as their favourite book character.

Here at PopUp Painting we wanted to explore artist’s interpretations of their favourite stories in light of World Book Day.

Catherine Paiano’s illustration depicts Ian Fleming’s iconic book From Russia with Love. Paiano states ‘It is a book cover I created for the novel, depicting suspense and tension, themes which are often presented in Fleming’s James Bond adventures. I chose no presence of text on the cover as I didn’t want any distraction from the chilling atmosphere presented. With the predominantly black and white tones of the setting, and the shadows contrasted with the dark blood red central figure, the viewer is left to guess who exactly this character could be, what they are about to do and what turn this narrative is going to take.’

The illustration is created with monoprinting which gives the work a rough finish, creating an eerie atmosphere.

To see more of Catherine Paiano’s artwork, please go here or follow her here.

Hazel Adams is a London based Wildlife Illustrator. Adams created a series of watercolour paintings based on Rudyard Kipling’s classic The Jungle Book for an exhibition in East London’s Whitechapel back in 2014. These beautiful paintings are detailed as well as expressive. Please see below to see Baloo, Bagheera and Hathi.

You can see more examples of Hazel Adam’s illustration here and follow her here.

Maria Nilsson is a Swedish Children’s Book Illustrator living in London. Nilsson creates charming and magical illustrations with a hint of Scandinavian influence. Maria has created with illustration based on childhood classic, The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. The illustration depicts Dorothy, The Tin Man, The Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow and Toto walking through the deadly poppy field.

To see more examples of Maria Nilsson’s art please click here or follow her here.

We then move to look at the powerful illustration of Graphic Novels, Stu Reid of Chronicle Art spends a lot of time recreating the characters from Marvel Stories. Reid creates his illustrations by using erassable coloured pencils, mechanical HB pencils for finer details along with ink and blending markers. This is his Spiderman illustration.

To see more examples of Stu Reid’s work, please go here or follow him here.

Fancy getting creative yourself? Book yourself on to one of our events here.